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Study Finds Vaccine Science Outreach Only Reinforced Myths (arstechnica.com)
Ars Technica reports on a study suggesting that "Striking at a myth with facts may only shore it up." Applehu Akbar writes:
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied public attitudes toward vaccination in a group whose opinions on the subject were polled before and after being shown three different kinds of explanatory material that used settled scientific facts about vaccines to explain the pro-vaccination side of the debate. Not only was the anti-vax cohort not convinced by any of the three campaigns, but their attitudes hardened when another poll was taken a week later.
What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them, and as reinforcement for their already made-up minds on the subject. A previous study at Dartmouth College in 2014 used similar methodology and except for the 'hardening' effect elicited similar results. What's really scary about this is that while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.
"The researchers speculate that the mere repetition of a myth during the process of debunking may be enough to entrench the myth in a believer's mind," writes Ars Technica, with one of the study's authors attributing this to the "illusory truth" effect.
"People tend to mistake repetition for truth."
What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them, and as reinforcement for their already made-up minds on the subject. A previous study at Dartmouth College in 2014 used similar methodology and except for the 'hardening' effect elicited similar results. What's really scary about this is that while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.
"The researchers speculate that the mere repetition of a myth during the process of debunking may be enough to entrench the myth in a believer's mind," writes Ars Technica, with one of the study's authors attributing this to the "illusory truth" effect.
"People tend to mistake repetition for truth."
Sad
Nice lie you got there. The science has been settled about a century ago. Unfortunately, the vaccine against stupidity still eludes us.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It's always important to ask, "What evidence would change your mind?"
If the answer is, "Nothing." Then there is a big problem with the ideology.
Yes, it's annoying when your kids question you all the time, and I feel for teachers who have to deal with everyone else's kids... but maybe we ought to stop with the Santa and Tooth Fairy and all the other 'cute and harmless' lies we tell kids.
Instead, we ought to be asking them what they think, and why, and then show them where they've made errors... so when they come up against something new, they have a fighting chance of figuring it out without someone holding their hand the whole time.
The best experience I ever had in school was a teacher mocking me for being afraid to be wrong, which is really the fork in the road where you either try to figure something out or just shut down and stick with your initial belief. We need more of that for our kids.
Consider the long and body-strewn history of companies whose products have done enormous damage to large numbers of people.
The cigarette companies were denying that their cute little puff-sticks could cause cancer after a decade in which the causality was as firmly established as 1+1=2. The company that brought out thalidomide was still denying their product maimed unborn babies quite some time after the evidence was rolling in like a tsunami. Monsanto is even now busy suppressing evidence that their roundup product causes cancer.
I could cite a bunch of other instances, but it all comes down to the proven fact that corporations lie about the disasters they cause. They have every reason to: Cleaning up their mess or making amends to the victims will cost them money!
"...once a man gets a reputation as a liar, he might as well be struck dumb, for people do not listen to the wind." -- Robert A. Heinlein Citizen of the Galaxy
while the Dartmouth subjects were taken from a large general population, the Edinburgh subjects were college students.
Half the population of school-leavers now go to university in the UK. That is despite the fact that there are only sufficient "graduate level" jobs for a small fraction of them.
While the smartest graduates will get those jobs, the rest will be left with a crushingly large bill for their 3 more years of "education". You have to question just how clever those remaining graduates actually are.
So it comes as no surprise to learn that in this topic, university students can act just as dim as "ordinary" people - since most of them are exactly that.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Yes. And they work as advertised, which is: not perfectly on every individual, so the whole society needs the herd immunity. Which anti-vaccers are endangering, in fact they outright destroyed it in some areas of Europe (for measles, at least). So, we have to thank the anti-vaccers in Europe for killing children and endangering everyone to prove a point that did not need any more proof in the first place.
Heck, you don't even need to be a scientist, you only need to go into areas where people who did not get vaccinated from endemic diseases are getting ill all the time, and you and your family, who did get vaccinated (and got bitten by the !@#$!@#$ mosquitoes just the same), don't get ill.
Jeez, even the optional H1N1 vaccines, which are in the very end of "low effectiveness" -- you often end up getting slightly ill, instead of seriously/dangerously ill -- can be easily seen working when you have a major outbreak, like we had in Brazil two years ago. More than 8000 people *DEAD* among the non-vaccinated, less than 100 among the vaccinated, plus a very sharp decline on hospitalizations (and deaths) two weeks after the massive vaccination campaigns *AND* no outbreak on the next year (the government started vaccinating people two months in advance, there was some spillover from the previous year, and much much more people got vaccinated).
IF a child - who is NOT inoculated spreads a disease throughout his/her peer group, then it's high time to start prosecuting their parents for criminal mischief, at the very least, for allowing their child to be a carrier and disease vector simply because they refused to get that child vaccinated. Prosecution levels should even be allowed to go as high as "involuntary manslaughter", although, to me, it's NOT involuntary, it's premeditated, and should be criminalized to the full extent of those statutes.
Granted, this doesn't solve the problem resulting from that incident, but it WILL send a message to all the other parents that refuse to get their children vaccinated. Basically, if you allow your child to be a disease carrier, then YOU are responsible for all the harm caused to the other children who are harmed, disabled, crippled, or even killed - ALL THROUGH YOUR OWN NEGLIGENCE, or your BELIEF SYSTEM.
It makes no difference whether the issue is religious, personal, or just plain obstinate hard-headedness - YOU are the reason another child (or children) contracted a disease that could have been prevented with current vaccination regimes.
OK, so it's a sad and sometimes horrific (in case of permanent disability or death) situation, and there are many who would say that the parents (and child) have suffered enough - - - BUT the situation is SOLELY the responsibility of the child's parents / guardians to see that they are given the best medical care available - and that INCLUDES THE VACCINATIONS !
There is a serious line of demarcation between religion and scientific medical processes - and if the 'BELIEF' faction is allowed to put the health and lives of the other children at risk, then I BELIEVE they should be removed from the general population - - - as in ISOLATION WARDS / CAMPS.
Sorry if this sounds a bit fascist, or absolute socialistic, but there is just too much at stake to allow this type of behavior to endanger the health and well-being of the majority of the population - - - simply because someone says "My FAITH says I should NOT do this".
Take your FAITH and use it to cure the harm caused to the other children endangered by your actions (or INactions).
GET YOUR VACCINATIONS - REGULARLY and ON TIME - - - to protect the whole world.
cheers . . .
redneck geek
1st thing people learn in clinical psychology is that you cannot reach the patient if you don't accept their world view. You can only navigate in their world view because any attempts to challenge it will sound very similar to what they have already heard multiple times when they were challenged on their world view. And by reminding them of how they reacted to it last time, the memory is reinforced. Anyone creating a marketing campaign should have known this.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Second, "flu like symptoms" is far FAR from having the flu itself. People tend to forget just how horribly having a bad flu can affect them. You can still go to work, take care of the kids and so on with "flu like symptoms", but it is quite common for the actual flu to leave you bedridden for days. Even with routine flu infections, there is a risk of death. And the nature of the flu virus is such that we can never wholly predict when the next pandemic killer flu will appear. Remember that H1N1 has been fingered as the killer behind the "Spanish Flu", a disease that, in two years killed more people world wide than the entirety of WW1. Something close to 20% of people who contracted the disease DIED. With the vaccines we have now, mortality rate is something like 0.01% We've gone to entire families dying, to a percentage smaller than a rounding error. I'd say that very VERY effectively demonstrates the effectiveness of flu vaccines don't you?
And while I'm at it, let me say that "flu like symptoms" are not contagious, but the flu certainly is. You can contract and pass along the flu for a day or so before you even have a hint that you're sick, and you can remain contagious for up to 10 days after first noticing symptoms. Being vaccinated reduces that window of contagion a great deal, making everyone else safer as well. (that is the bigger part of the herd immunity effect. The other part is that, with far fewer hosts to replicate in, the opportunities for the virus to mutate into something more virulent are drastically reduced.)
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
'd rather air (sic) on the side of caution. When my children are adults they can decide for themselves if they want to take that poison.
Please do so. Hopefully they will die from one of the childhood diseases that vaccines can prevent, and end the spread of your genes.
Now as for the article stating:
What seems to have happened was that the pro-vax campaign was taken by anti-vaxers as just another attempt to lie to them.
Paranoid personality disorder is almost impossible to treat, because (1) paranoid people take anything, even coincidences, as evidence that someone is out to get them in one way or another, and (2) they believe their paranoid delusions are validation of their inner self, and any attempt to point out the contrary is just more proof that their paranoia is justified.
It doesn't have to make sense, because we're dealing with people showing signs that in any other situation would be seen as a break with reality, but because of "we must give equal weight to all opinions, even the totally batshit crazy ones," you're evil if you try to do so in this case, again reinforcing their delusions.
Can anyone who isn't an anti-vaxxer deny these people are showing signs of mental illness?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The problem with any complex science is that understanding the mechanism behind it is complex and requires a significant amount of time and learning. It's easier to dismiss the science in these cases, particularly where someone is protected by herd immunity or the global changes in climate are just beginning to be noticeable at a broad level.
So the vaccine and climate science deniers take the easy path. Until the 10 years of record temperatures (each year sets the record for highest temperature) or a Measles outbreak kills someone they love.
The problem becomes when that person's denial directly threatens the lives of others. Unlike climate science, Vaccines and herd immunity provide protection for that 3-4% of people who cannot be vaccinated due to severe allergies. When that parent doesn't get their kid vaccinated and their kid is part of a pandemic that takes lives they should be prosecuted for negligent homicide. And yes I absolutely mean it, the people who's family members died in the Disneyland outbreak should be suing every single person that got the virus and wasn't vaccinated. They should take them for every dime they've got. Only when there are real penalties for those who choose to risk everyone else's lives by failing to get vaccines will people take vaccines seriously as a public health initiative.
You don't want to vaccinate? Go live somewhere where vaccines aren't given. Discover the panacea of living where you can die any time from completely preventable disease.
No one makes money on Vaccines. They are subsidized by the government because drug companies can't produce them at a cost high enough to make a profit. Almost every vaccine sold is subsidized by the government. So your argument about profit kinds falls on it's face in such a scenario, after all the drug companies would much prefer to give you a pill to treat the symptoms of the disease than a shot that prevents it.
Why wouldn't you want to get a vaccine for a disease that could kill you? Even if it is rare in your current age group? I've yet to encounter a vaccine for something that doesn't kill people, and even the ones that rarely kill can often do significant damage even if you survive it. And most of the ones that are rare in the US are rare because people are vaccinated.
If 100 of the vaccinated died because of an outbreak of something they were supposed to be vaccinated against -- does this really support your argument that vaccination protects?
Sure: not providing 100% protection doesn't mean not providing protection at all. Claiming the opposite would be ridiculous and we all don't apply such a standard in other cases, so why applying it to vaccines?
As example, using seat belts definitely do *not* save 100% of those who have a car accident, but we consider them an effective protection still.
No, the DNC and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the election of Donald Trump.
Sounds like a typical Trump and Trump supporter response - blame someone else. :-)
Actually, OP is right. DNC and Hillary Clinton did not marshal an effective campaign. Just like with Bush-Gore, another example where the electoral college overcame the popular vote, the DNC simply didn't do their job. W. should have taught them that simple-talk to simple people can win.
Trump supporters do indeed do that thing you say... "blame someone else," but in this case it's true. Against a guy like Trump, it was the DNC's race to lose, and they lost, not just to Trump but also a lot of House and Senate seats. They need to completely re-think their game - blaming the Russians, flat-earthers, crusty white males, or whomever is not going to get them out of this hole.
Trusting a medical opinion because the person giving it is a celebrity is not critical thinking. Trusting someone because they're a celebrity is how you got Trump as president. And people continue to trust celebrities even after they've been caught in lie after lie after lie. Why? Because even if we did invent a vaccine against stupidity, they would be against it because they're stupid.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
A big mistake was making Al Gore the spokesman for climate change. That unnecessarily politicized the issue. Back in 2007, most Republican presidential candidates agreed that climate change was a serious issue that need to be addressed. That would never happen today. They don't want to be accused of "agreeing with Al Gore". For Republican politicians, it is a toxic issue, and has become an ideological litmus test, so facts and evidence no longer matter.
I call that BS. Way before Al Gore became the spokesman for climate change republicans were already steering away from it because... lobbying. This is an article from the Guardian from 1997, called "Who Killed Kyoto?": https://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/Guardian.html
So way before Al Gore ran for president, or he did his movie/documentary, or whatever...
As someone who grew up in the 1970s, I can assure you the climatology talk which filtered out to the general public back then was about whether or not we'd enter another ice age.
The explanation given in your link (that the mass media was hyping global cooling, but climate scientists were publishing papers about global warming) doesn't really help. It just confirms the belief that the mass media will hype whatever they want rather than report accurately.
2) He wrote prejudiced opinions not based in fact (Countered with "He cited references for each position he took")
I read the thing and no he didn't. He cited references for some of the positions he took, and make a bunch of rather large extrapolations on the remainder. Not that citations are magic indicators of truth mind you.
He also had no references and didn't really make any reasonable attempt to actually support the central thesis, which was: "a. biological differences exist. b. differences exist in representation. c. a a causes b". Kind of a tricky one to argue since things have changes so much in the last 60 years or so, a far far faster timescale than could be explained by innate biological differences.
There are many much more detailed takedowns that have been written in the comments on this very site. The TL;DR of them is that the arguments are pretty much all ones which have been hashed over many times before (here included). Even the supposed "4 supporting scientists" can be more or less categorised about "ignored the content, complained about the comments", "broadly disagreed", "broadly agreed" and "nothing relevant or support either way, probably did not read", which is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Oh and what's the thing with the fetishisation of a partly[*] finished PhD in systems biology being taken as an almost magical talisman of credibility on an unrelated area of biology by many posters here?
What we have had is that anyone pointing out that rather inconvenient fact is modded down, called a liar or accused of simply not reading it. So, rather than getting the "logical" discussion that the supporters claim to be so keen on, any dissent is met with a solid wall of screeching. I welcome downmods to prove me right on this one too!
[*] Nothing wrong with bailing, more people ought to, frankly.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No, it wasn't. Stop parroting memes based on FUD & bullshit.
It may not have been a threat but it was certainly reported as being a threat (source: my memory of reading articles in serious papers and magazines - albeit I was doing that reading in the 80's).
However, it was not 'considered' a threat in the same way, or to the same degree, that AGW is 'considered' today.
Just as 1 in every 10,000 Toyotas, Mercedes Benzes or Teslas is going to be a lemon, 1 in 10,000 vaccinations can "go wrong". This is just the nature of such things.
That said, it really sucks if YOU buy that specific Toyota, Mercedes Benz or Tesla. And more so if YOUR kid is that ONE in 10,000. You can dump the car lemon, you have the child until they die. I personally know of one such extremely tragic case, so the pro-vaxxers should just shut up and admit to the reality of the stats.
Yes, the reality is every once in a while a child has a really bad reaction from a vaccine but the reality of the flip side is A LOT worse. I don't know how accurate your 1 in 10000 number is but that sounds like REALLY good odds to me. Before vaccines, 1 in 3 kids didn't make it to adulthood. Which odds would you rather have for your kid? A 1 in 10000 chance of dying from a vaccine or a 1 in 3 chance of dying from not getting a vaccine? Sure, because most people are vaccinated today, your odds are a little better than 1 in 3 even if you don't get a vaccine but it's still not as good as with getting the vaccine. When the odds of complications exceed the odds of catching the disease, that's when we discontinue the vaccine. That's why no one gets vaccinated for smallpox anymore except for a few soldiers going to a few high risk areas.
As a data person, the one thing I wish that the pro-vaccine people would start doing is listing the odds of complications of the vaccine right next to the estimated odds of catching the disease. I think some antivaxers might respond to that if you said "odds of bad reaction 1/10000, current odds of catching disease 1/1000, historical odds of catching the disease 1/100, odds of dying if you catch the disease 1/3"